an amalgamation of personal politics, and my life as a Ph.D. candidate

PlannerCon 2018, San Francisco Weekend: Day 1

Posted on 2018-03-05

Initially, this was going to be one post about my entire weekend at PlannerCon 2018. However, I am heeding my mom’s advice and will stop making excessively long blog posts, in favor of shorter ones. You can read Saturday and Sunday’s post up on my blog in the read next section.

Friday, March 2

At 6:30AM on Friday I called a Lyft to drive me to Miami International Airport. By 8:40AM I was well on my way to San Francisco to attend PlannerCon 2018.

After landing, I met up with someone I was speaking to in the PlannerCon Social group, to go and see the Golden Gate Bridge together. We were both #soloyolo travelers who had never been to Cali before!

Initially, it was supposed to rain all Friday— but the rain literally stopped when our Lyft put us off by Crissy Field Center to see the Golden Gate Bridge. The rain did start again after we got into our Lyft to head back to the hotel– which was funny. We literally spent 1 hour and 30 minutes exploring near Crissy Field and Fort Point, so it’s like the rain Gods intentionally made us get great views of the bridge, rain-free, on Friday.

We ended up walking maybe 2 miles from Crissy Field to Fort Point, since the Crissy Field views of the Bridge are a bit more landscapish:

And at Fort Point you’re much closer to the bridge:

From Fort Point we took a Lyft back to the hotel for PlannerCon early registration. To say that THE LINE WAS LONG— would be an understatement. It did move pretty quickly, but the line was not expected at all. I was thinking “early registration” meant almost no one would be there— but, I guess since we’re all planners, we all had the same idea.

After registration, I received my swag bag full of free goodies:

And from browsing through vendor booths, I also received some free goodies:

…But not everything was free, on Friday, I ended up purchasing these items near the Golden Gate Bridge (with the exception of the hiking and biking trail map, and stamps):

And these items from PlannerCon 2018 vendors:

I then took some general photos of what shopping looked at on Friday night…it was packed! Especially in the main ballroom, the second floor shopping (last photo), not so much:

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I then went to the hotel’s restaurant to eat dinner before the Night of Stars started— my first meal on Friday was dinner—a burger with “lamb bacon,” which was a delicious first for me.

Although I did get a ticket to meet Erin Condren at her booth on Friday after my registration, I did not wait in line to meet her. Hunger was calling. However, I did get to meet her on Saturday….

-Sincerely, Tawm

[FYI: if you see yourself in any of my broader photos of booths/audiences and would like to be blurred, please contact me– using the contact form on this blog, an instagram DM, or a Facebook message to Sincerely, Tawm– and I will blur you out! Please provide the name of the post and the order than the photo is in, thank you.]